Thursday’s column about radio’s Gaga-
era willingness to embrace the kind of record that once did a lot better internationally prompted a lot of responses, including one about the concurrent mainstreaming of British radio. With American pop—including Rhythmic pop—getting a little more bubblegummy, the two Top 40 scenes are frequently meeting in the middle.

Jon Heasman, manager of commercial radio licensing at Ofcom, the British radio regulator, writes, “Of course, you probably know that here in the U.K., the whole ‘Guilty Pleasures’ thing really took off four or five years ago with a lot of really successful club nights spanning the likes of David Essex to Whigfield’s “Saturday Night,” but unsurprisingly this is not a concept that has worked particularly well on the radio . . . Fortunately, though it does make life blander, the U.K. does seem to suffer from fewer novelty hits these days.”

It’s true; the charts have been less at the mercy of “Mr. Blobby” and his friends in recent years. As noted last week, globalization works both ways and U.K. radio definitely plays some songs that might once have been considered too American. Also, the event record slots that used to go to childrens’ TV show themes, charity remakes, and other oddities now go to the latest “X-Factor” winner, rarely as goofy. And somewhere in the pre-iTunes Music Store era, the British singles chart also lost influence at radio—as in the U.S., radio gave itself permission to ignore certain records even if they had a sales story.
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Because British radio has become more Americanized, I don’t find myself spending quite the amount of time with it that I did a decade ago—when I probably spent more time listening to Europe than the States. (It was also around the time that U.S. radio backed off streaming for a while.) Listening to much of U.K. radio, one is more likely to spend a lot of time wading through American hits or (given the always conservative nature of British Top 40 radio) U.K. recurrents before hearing anything new.

But I still hear one worth sharing from time to time, including this week’s No. 2 British hit (held out of No. 1 so far by Usher’s “O.M.G”). This, too, comes from a former finalist on “X-Factor.” So far, I’m unaware of any U.S. plans for it; but even if the original never comes out here, it would also be a perfect first single if current “American Idol” contestant Siobhan Magnus ends up with a record deal.
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“Sean, there was really no Boney M in America? I couldn’t imagine that. ‘Oceans of Fantasy’ was the first album I ever bought. Granted, the B-52s’ self-titled debut was the second album I bought, which probably just goes to show that Canadians are insane. Um, I mean eclectic.” – Cori Death, Senior Research Manager/Radio, Vision Critical

“I can’t believe you compared ‘Bad Romance’ to ‘Rasputin’ [by Boney M], I still further can’t believe I get it. But you mentioned the [success of] Nickelback-type ballads in the U.K. Those are the guilty pleasures of today.” – Jay Frank, CMT

“Excellent article on the Globalization of music—great comparisons of Gaga to Boney M. I've been a Pop fan all my life, I loved Abba then and love Lady Gaga now, and speaking of excellent, you nailed it with your appreciation of Adam Lambert as ‘American Idol’ mentor . . . ‘Whatya Want From Me’ has already been a huge hit in a lot of markets, like New York City, and should be a legitimate Top 5 hit for him with more hits on the way. Adam is a real talent and showman who can sing and deliver a great performance, and understands how to make a hit song. Given the chance, he's a lasting talent for our business. America needs to get over the AMA performance and embrace him.” – Guy Zapoleon
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“I asked the local Bud distributor whether microbreweries were hurting them when I was GM of a rock station in the mid ‘90s. He said that while the biggest of them had only a 2% share, as a category it was growing and taking more and more share - little bits at a time. He went on to say that because there were so many tiny competitors, it was harder to mount a counter strategy. This seems analogous to Pandora, Sirius, iPods, computer games, etc. and all of the media now fighting radio for time and attention. One can dismiss any of them as small and insignificant, but in the aggregate, they are chipping away at terrestrial radio. What radio should do about it is another story . . . The current royalty structure makes it pretty much impossible to make money streaming music online, which seems to be the unacknowledged 800 pound gorilla in this room . . . I know that the answer won't come from arguing over how many titles are played or whether Pandora has more or fewer listeners than WBEB.” – Bob Bellin

“Radio folks should realize by now ad hominem attacks are pretty useless. In fact, they backfire more often than not. Harker disputes Westergren's supposed comment about Pandora being bigger than WBEB in Philly (a quote to which he provides no direct reference). In his argument against this, Harker projects Pandora's total US subscriber base against the percent of US population that Philly represents [which is] the same kind of [projection] he is accusing Westergren of. Pandora clearly could, and probably does, have a higher concentration of users in a city like Philly than in does throughout the rest of the US . . . It just makes people who believe in the power of the audio medium seem defensive, [even though] most of us aren’t.” – Steve Burgess

“On the iPhone (until OS 4.0 this summer) audio apps (like Pandora) cannot play in the background. If you're listening to Pandora (or any non-MP3 stream), you have to stop listening to use the iPhone for another app. There are a couple workarounds like ooTunes putting a browser inside the player, but until 4.0, comparing traditional radio metrics to the Internet streaming is misleading. Where is the ‘skip this song’ button on conventional radio?” – Fred Stiening, Streaming Radio Guide

Have a great week. Back with more Ross On Radio on Thursday.
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One Night With Now

Jason Derulo, Orianthi, Kat DeLuna (pictured), the New Boyz, morning host Nick Cannon and Cannon’s protégé Aaron Fresh were on the bill at Top 40 WXRK (Now 92.3) New York’s first spring concert, “One Night Stand.” (Taio Cruz, also planned for the concert, was stranded in Europe.)

Wicks Clicks With Wolf Morning Show

RCA Nashville’s Chuck Wicks visited Country KBWF (The Wolf) San Francisco to perform his new “Hold That Thought.” He’s flanked by morning team members Eddie King and Corey Foley.

Sean Ross is Executive Editor of Music and Programming for Radio-Info.com. He is also a consultant to the radio and music industries, and VP of music and programming for Edison Research. He can be reached at 973.763.1306. Stations he has recently worked with in his Edison capacity are asterisked.